Monthly Archives: May 2013

Feel Better with Parkinson’s by Exercising!

Your struggle is a tough one. Every day, you deal with the constant shaking, and you can’t stand it. It keeps you from doing the things you love, and keeps your loved ones from showering you with more attention out of sympathy than simple affection.

But there is a way you can help quell some of your symptoms, and it’s not another experimental drug or case study. It’s actually an oldie-but-goodie: exercise.

It’s one of the most fun ways, too. Getting out of the house every now and again, getting to see old friends or meet new ones and dive into a new challenge – can’t beat that!

How Does Exercise Help?

Your illness has several different layers, too many to pin down one or two simple causes. But the net results are far simpler: it reduces your body’s supply of dopamine.

Dopamine is a super important chemical. It’s a neurotransmitter, which means that it exists between nerve endings and helps bridge the gap from one nerve to another, making the network of nerves that is your nervous system. Because of dopamine, your body is able to send the ever-important electrical signals that, basically, let your body do everything that it needs to.

But when dopamine is in short supply, as is the case with Parkinson’s, things tend to go haywire. This has a significant effect on cognition, and may be one of the reasons why it’s hard for you to focus on things in the moment and remember them after. But it also manifests physically, in the form of some of the shaking you’re experiencing.

This is why exercise is great for people with Parkinson’s. When you exercise, your brain is encouraged to release more dopamine into your bloodstream, because it thinks you need to be calmed down from your workout. This, though, helps keep your body’s baseline level of dopamine high, and with each successive workout, your body’s baseline dopamine level will rise. Obviously, it has its limits, but you get the point.

So, exercising might be one of the greatest things people with Parkinson’s can do.

Exercise Has Other Benefits

Exercise, though, also has other benefits for people with Parkinson’s, namely, with their mood.

Mood is so important to most everything we do in life. Our attitude can not only help us get through the day, but there are actually several scientific studies that point to your outlook drastically affecting the results of certain challenges that you may face.

For people with Parkinson’s, mood can be a significant factor. Oftentimes, the problem with mood is that it creates a self-perpetuating wheel. You have issues with shaking, which makes you feel sad. But that you feel sad actually exacerbates the problem that makes you shake, which makes you shake more.

This, of course, is all chemically linked. Your body’s supply of neurotransmitters, including dopamine as well as serotonin and others, is absolutely vital in your body’s ability to function the way that you want it to, to diminish the symptoms of Parkinson’s. But feeling upset actually lowers your body’s supply of neurotransmitters, thus making you more susceptible to the symptoms that caused the problem in the first place.

Similarly, enhancing your mood can also be contagious. Exhibit fewer symptoms because you’re exercising, and you’re likely to feel better about your day. Feel better about your day, and you’re likely to feel better about the next day.

What’s there not to like about that?

Valerie Johnston is a health writer located in Lake Fork, Texas. She is passionate about running and clean eating and writing for Healthline.com ensures she stays up-to-date on the latest trends and news in the health and fitness industry.

–

… Thanks Valerie and Healthline.com for the post and a great reminder to get active! much love.

Most recently, 10 people with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and their live-in caregivers meditated for 11 minutes, twice daily for 8 weeks. Results of this study showed decreased perceived stress and depression. Also, improved mood, sleep, retrospective memory function, and blood pressure were demonstrated. This supports meditation programs as effective self-care strategies for BOTH persons with neurological disorders and their caregivers.

The benefits for sleep and mood are especially important, given the high prevalence and negative impact of chronic stress, sleep disturbance, and mood impairment in these populations. What I love best about this study is that is benefits BOTH patients and caregivers… and is something you can do TOGETHER. Strengthening not only self-care strategies, but also perhaps relationship quality and shared experiences.

Although we are still not certain of what it does, we do know it makes up Lewy Bodies, clusters of proteins that are a pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease and other dementias (lewy body dementias). It is thought that in Parkinson’s disease, the variability in alpha-synuclein gene produces either too much alpha-synuclein protein or causes it to malfunction — which may be toxic to brain cells and to result in neuron dysfunction.

Some of the ways in which research is targeting alpha-synuclein is by:

compound to break up alpha-synuclein clumps (breaking up formation of lewy bodies)

Recent research developments include a chemical compound that slows down the onset and progression of Parkinson’s disease in mice. Griese and Griesinger in Gottingen have developed a substance which, in mouse models of the disease, reduces the rate of growth of the alpha-synuclein deposits and delays nerve cell degeneration. As a consequence, mice treated with this agent remain disease-free for longer than non-medicated controls. The current gold-standard, Levodopa, controls Parkinson’s symptoms by enhancing the function of the surviving nerve cells in the substantia nigra. This compound shows promise in slowing down the progression, according to their lab results; the earlier the onset of treatment, the longer the animals remained disease free.

A study published in November 2012 showed that GM1 ganglioside improved symptoms and slowed disease progression during a two and a half-year trial in persons with Parkinson’s. Dr. Jefferson, published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, followed 77 subjects over a 120-week period and 17 control subjects as comparison. GM1 group had significant improvement in UPDRS motor scores and maintained much of the initial benefit of GM1 treatment, (i.e. showed relatively minor symptom progression compared to patients using standard anti-Parkinson medications).

… some very interesting drug developments on the horizon. it’s a long process from developing compounds, animal testing, clinical testing etc. … but nice to know there are possibilities on the horizon! much love

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” ~Rumi

You know what it is. You’ve always known. You drew pictures of it when you were small. But then, job, kids, house, yard, family, friends, house, yard, work, computer came along. It sits under all that “busy me”.

It’s your dharma, your purpose.

You might already be doing it without naming it. Or it’s something you’d do it without pay if you could live off it.

Your calling. And it may take a huge amount of physical and emotional effort. The path may be confusing, painful, stressful, but you will know that it’s worth it.

Life mastery doesn’t have to be making deals, responding to emails, losing sleep. You can change the world and achieve your dharma with not only the yang -pushing forward, taking action- but also the yin -be in the flow and receptive.

Some ways to help you get there..

Take the time to figure out “what lights you up”!

Try saying no to things that don’t contribute to your purpose.

Surround yourself with people who understand or do similar “work”.

Take some time to sit and listen to your inner teacher.

Trust that you know what is best for yourself and your purpose.

Take the time and space you need. Ebb and Flow.

Embrace your calling, whatever it is. No judgment.

what lights you up? It’s ok to still be figuring it out. I know mine involves

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup ready is the most popular herbicide, and the most biologically disruptive according to a new study in the journal Entropy.

Although industry (aka Monsanto) asserts it is non-toxic, Dr’s Samsel and Seneff argue it inhibits an enzyme (cytochrome P450 (CYP)) and disrupts crucial gut microbes, amino acids, and other biological processes ( like inflammation). You can read the full journal article HERE.

dailyguardian.co.uk

Roundup ready is sprayed on lawn weeds and used in generically engineered corn and soy that goes into our Western diet of corn, sugar, soy and wheat. Dr’s Samsel and Seneff propose that Roundup ready disrupts CYP enzyme’s function, leading to inflammation and contributes to diseases associated with a Western diet, including gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

what are your thoughts? … i think it’s just another reason to eat local and organic. where does your food come from and what are the consequences of that? much love.

doing yoga regularly at home can be very beneficial to your practice. It may be intimidating to practice without guidance, you don’t need to be a super-yogi to create a safe and beneficial home yoga practice.

some days my home practice is seated meditation, breath work by candlelight…

take a few classes, first. get to know which postures make you feel good, and which postures really benefit you. Those are the poses that may be tough and that challenge you… you may be avoiding them, but you may really benefit from working on that area (hamstrings, core, slow movements, long holds). also, get to know proper body alignment. develop good alignment and positioning habits right from the beginning.

be easy on yourself. do what you feel like doing, instead of what you do in class or what someone tell you you should be doing. the first thing to ask yourself is: what type of practice and schedule works best for me?

personalize it. chose what (poses?) helps you the most in this moment. maybe today you sit and breathe for 2minutes. maybe tomorrow you do 20minutes of solid movement. maybe the day after you lie in savasana for 5minutes. make it accessible and flexible so you’re more likely to do it. getting on your mat is good enough.

don’t make it complicated. nothing fancy. just you, your mat or a designated floor space. everything else is bonus.

make it a habit. just like brushing your teeth, practice yoga consistently.

get creative. for those busy days, let something else be your yoga for the day. make a task (dishes, laundry, commute) a mindful meditative experience. be fully present and observe yourself during the task.

… and some days my home practice is bright, energetic and keeps me on my toes!

… most importantly, yoga is about making a habit of coming back home to yourself. so, take the time to check-in with yourself daily, it’s a nice habit. Also, if you’ve lost the motivation for your home practice or daily routines, try setting up a private session with a local teacher to help design a program that re-inspires you. Getting support makes this yoga-journey more fun!

do you have a home practice? if so, feel free to share what it looks like in the comments below! much love.